


Luck's Boys

by darthneko



Series: Handfuls of Dreams [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Fantasy, Gen, M/M, Magic-Users, Military, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2006-12-04
Updated: 2006-12-04
Packaged: 2018-02-07 01:02:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 11,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1879113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darthneko/pseuds/darthneko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The life of a Reine squadron on the front line.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hello, Goodbye

_Imperial Year 298, Rumänien Provinz_

Afterwards they all agreed on one thing - it had, from the very beginning, gone completely balls up.

A nighttime strike, the orders had said. A tiny enemy supply depot, and what should have been a quick, clean kill. It had all looked so damned crisp on paper; go in, hit them, get out. And somewhere along the way, somehow, it had gone every which way but right.

The rain was cold and driving, heavy and wet off the coast, and it made Jann's aching fingers slick on the stock of his MP40. The magazine clicked into place and took the skin off his knuckle; he swore, shaking rain out of his eyes. "How many more?" 

Kalmenka's face was hard to make out in the dark, only hand spans from Jann; his eyes were closed and the sharp tension in the shoulder against his own told Jann the other man was frowning, jaw locked in concentration as he focused on numbers and things they couldn't see. "Too many," he grated, and machine gun fire punctuated the words for emphasis, _spack!_ against the wet ground and sharper pangs against metal and brick. 

Jann hissed, grabbing Kalmenka's shoulder to drag him further down behind the broken wall; above his other shoulder there was the deafening staccato of return fire and then Michal slid down beside them, swearing as he wrenched his empty magazine free and slapped in a fresh one. "Fuck... last one, sir."

"Mine too," Jann growled. "Kalmenka..."

" _Working_ on it," the Reine snarled, his voice strained. More gunfire sounded above the rain, and Jann could dimly hear a burst of angry indistinct syllables from where the rest of the team was pinned. Kalmenka twisted in the streaming mud, slapping his bare hands against the rough stones of the wall, his entire body strung snapping tight.

Jann had heard decorated veterans scoff at the Reine units, claiming that the Mathe was nothing to be excited about - no different from the explosion of a shell or the crack of a cannon, just another weapon. Jann could think of choice words for every one of the pompous oldtimers, starting with a demand to know if they had ever actually been in arm's length of a Reine officer working the Mathe. Kalmenka didn't move but Jann swore he could _feel_ it a moment before it hit, all the hairs on his body standing upright in an itching crawling wave that made his teeth ache, and then the black night sky exploded in fingers of lurid orange fire leaping up over a story high to meet the hissing rain.

"Scheiße - cover him!" Jann swore, but Michal didn't need telling, darting up over the edge of the wall to lay down fire as Kalmenka surged to his feet. The Reine's eyes were unfocused, staring without seeing, his hands gripped tight on the rough edge of the wall. Across the encampment three more explosions went up, one right after the other, in a chain of fire and smoke and the enemy's shouting.

Jann ducked a bullet and picked off two of the silhouettes illuminated by the fire in stacatto bursts, finger cold and wet on the trigger. The fire surged upwards like fountain streams, jumping in bursts and surges that wove in bright curling ribbon snakes against the night, and Jann clenched his teeth as his ears started ringing. Another explosion billowed up, this one punctuated by the deafening crack and burst of ammunition, and Michal let out a whoop. "That's done it!" Jann yelled over the crackling chain of exploding shells, struggling up from the soft ground. "Pull out!"

"Time to go!" Michal took up the call and it was the chatter of his gun and the steady _pak pak pak_ of Adolf's P08 that covered their backs as the squad scrambled. Only Kalmenka didn't move, the firelight reflecting off his staring eyes and the set, hard clenched line of his jaw. Jann swore roundly and grabbed the back of the other man's jacket, putting his full weight into jerking the Reine around. Kalmenka stumbled, almost going down, their shoulders colliding, and across the camp the flames hissed and sputtered and were _normal_ flames, flickering and dancing as flames ought.

"Time to go, sir!" Jann roared in his Reine's ear; Kalmenka nodded, dazed, but blinked rapidly back to focus and struggled up. Jann shoved him after the others and slapped Michal's shoulder. "Go! _GO!_ "

It was pissing rain and belching fire; the ammunitions were up in smoke and by all rights it should have been over. It should have been all over except for the sauntering home part, and cold drinks and warm dry beds, but Fortune was a fickle bitch of a mistress. Jann had looked over his shoulder, had the light of the fire in his eyes, when he heard the shot and saw Michal jerk, head thrown back as blood sprayed dark against the flames.

"NO!" The moment warped like warm taffy, stretched slow and fast all at once. Jann caught the other man as he fell, staggering under Michal's long legged weight, the sounds out of his own mouth insensible to his ears. Everything was black and red in the firelight, soaked in cold rain; Jann wrapped an arm around the other man's chest, scraping knee and gun hand alike as he went down in the mud. 

And then Randolf was there, grabbing Michal's other arm, and it was Franz covering them, methodical short bursts of gunfire squeezed out like telegraph code, and Jann's world snapped back into focus as they ran, slipping and sliding in the mud and the dark. Behind them the last of the arms supplies went up in booming thunder, billowing smoke and flames, and everything was shouts and screams and gunfire. 

The regroup point was predetermined, far enough that the cough of guns was only a distant echo, swallowed in the crackle of flames still high and clear in the night. A small rise sheltered it from sight but nothing kept off the rain and it was all mud and more mud; Jann slid in it and finally went down, Randolf right after him, and between them they lowered Michal to the ground. Randolf was nothing more than a mud streaked pale blur under his helmet, his voice a breathless broken pant that slid into and out of words. "Scheiße... Scheiße! Du dummer Hurensohn - untersteh dich! Untersteh dich zu sterben!"

"Man down!" Jann barked, his own throat hoarse. "Bandages - get me a light!" Someone pressed a torch into his hand; he thumbed it on, training the weak beam of light on Michal, and wished he hadn't.

Someone - Jann thought it was Adolf, the man turned green over his own papercuts unless he was being shot at - turned away, retching. A medical pouch ended up in Jann's hands; he tucked the torch between ear and shoulder to hold it until Randolf took it from him, fumbling blindly through the bag by touch for a wax sealed fold of dressing, for all the good it would do. Michal was still breathing, whistled wet gasps under the hiss of the rain that bubbled through blood and the shattered ruin of bone and tooth where the lower half of his face should have been.

"Mein Herr!" Randolf reached out, stoping just short of grabbing Kalmenka's drenched sleeve. "Do something - he'll die!"

Kalmenka's eyes were huge in the wavering light, swallowed by the dark blot of his pupils. "Do _what_?" he demanded, hoarse. He dropped into the mud beside them, hands going to Michal's chest. He swore, something in the harsh clipped syllables of his native dialect. "Don't you give up on us, boy..."

Jann shook out bandages, dressing, ripping into packages, distantly watching his own hands shake as he pressed gauze to shredded flesh and splintered bone. "Mein Herr, there's nothing here that's going to help. We've got to..."

"He's not going to make it," Franz cut in roughly. "Scheiße, half his skull's missing! What the fuck are the docs supposed to put back together?"

Randolf's hand closed, hard and daring, over Kalmenka's wrist. " _Do_ something!" he demanded. The torch in the boy's other hand was shaking and his voice cracked, jumping brokenly. "Why can't you _do_ something?"

"I _can't_ ," Kalmenka shot back, wrenching his arm away. His voice was shaking as hard as Randolf's grip, something raggedly raw under the tone that Jann could feel the echo of under his own breastbone, tight and cold. "Don't you think I would if I could? The Mathe's not for that!"

"Then get me something that'll help." The voice, Jann found to his surprise, was his own; it burst out of his throat on a croak, alien to his ears. The bandages under his fingers were soaked through, black with rain and blood, and there was no stopping either. "It's too long back to pickup... Luck's mercy, sir, there's nothing worth shit in a kit - morphine, potassium, _something_..."

He locked eyes with the other man, afraid to look away, look down, and seeing the same fear in Kalmenka's eyes. The sharp metallic snap of metal on metal and Adolf's yelp of "Franz - no!" broke the freeze. 

Franz, his mouth tight, cocked the pistol and sighted down the length of his arm at Michal's body. "This is mercy," he ground out. "He's drowning in his own fucking blood." 

"No." Kalmenka moved, half putting his own shoulder in the way, blocking the shot. "No... not like that." That close, Jann could see the other man swallow, jaw locked, and the whites all around his eyes. "He deserves better than that." 

The Reine half pushed his wet sleeves back, baring inches of wet skin and the black inked likes of his matrixes to the torchlight. Jann couldn't help but sit back, leaning away, breath tight in his throat, as Kalmenka's hands came to rest on what remained of Michal's face, cupping the ruined cheeks. 

It was softer and worse all at once, a gentle prickling that grew gradually along the nape of Jann's neck. On the other side of Michal's body Randolf hugged into himself, his grip on the torch tight knuckled and shaking, face paper white and sick in the light. Kalmenka, his head bowed, was whispering Mathe syllables to himself that Jann could only half hear over the hiss of the rain. "...lenstoff, Wasserstoff, Sticks... Natrium, Sauer..."

Jann didn't know what it made, what it did, but the tingle built up, crackling and itching over his skin. "Kalium," Kalmenka whispered, "...chlorid." The tingle popped with a bare whisper, fading into the night. Jann counted twenty three rapid heartbeats in four breaths; by the time he drew a fifth the body beneath Kalmenka's hands was just a body, blood washing away into the rain and mud, indiscriminately black in the darkness.

* * * * *

He was sitting at the little wood plank table near the barrack door, the one that Adolf used every other week to spread the ledgers out on and write up their accounts, and which doubled as a card table when the mood took them. Adolf's battered typewritter had been dug out but it sat abandoned on the corner of the table, forsaken for Kalmenka's preferred pen and a scattered sheaf of papers that were slowly and steadily migrating from scribbled sheets to crumpled balls on the floor at the Reine's feet.

There was a stash of pure vodka in an unmarked bottle at the bottom of Jann's footlocker; it had been dug out in broad daylight and made the rounds, splashed in tin cup and chipped ceramic mug, the toasts drunk in heavy silence as they clustered on the nearest bunks. "Mein Herr...?" Adolf had called, but Kalmenka had only shaken his head without looking up, the long wrapped tail of his dark braid conveying the negative in a sharp ripple across his back. Outside the windows rough voices took up the rhythm of a march cadence in time to heavy steps; a sharper voice barked orders and in the distance there was the deeper hiss of truck engines as the camp went about its regular day. 

Franz tapped his knuckle against the booted ankle Jann had planted squarely atop the blankets, leaning forward to reach for the bottle. Jann passed it over easily but made a sound of protest when Franz got to his feet. "'ey..."

"You've got another," Franz told him, "and I've a third and Michal deserves every last drop." He tipped the half empty bottle into the light that fell through the window, jerking his head towards Kalmenka. "But he needs this one."

Jann nodded, but his mouth pressed thin in a long grimace. "Luck, if you can get it down him."

Franz just shrugged. Kalmenka didn't notice as he approached, head bowed over the papers, and a look over his hunched shoulder showed that formal writing had dissolved into the interlocking ink strokes of Reine notes, meandering in angles across the page. The man's eyes were closed, lips moving almost inaudibly, but Franz caught a mix of syllables in the whisper. "...sajnálom, páter..."

He topped off his own mug with a splash and set the heavy bottle down on top of the papers in front of Kalmenka with a hard thunk. Hooking an ankle around one of the empty chairs, he dragged it around to straddle, elbows resting across the back. "If your father would blame you for what happened out there then you need a new fucking family," Franz said bluntly, only following it a beat later with an offhand belated "Respects, Sir."

Kalmenka jerked, startled, and the pen in his hand streaked ink across the page. Franz reached to put the bottle pointedly on top of the new smear, lifting his own cup with a nod. "To Michal," he offered.

The Reine blinked at him, the blue of his eyes muddy with bloodshot. After a long moment he swallowed, nodding jerkily, and dropped the pen to reach for the bottle, long fingers wrapping around the neck. The base of the bottle clinked against Franz's cup and they both drank; Franz inhaled past the burn of the alcohol and watched, satisfied, as Kalmenka tipped the bottle back to swallow like it was nothing more than beer before lowering it with a rough cough. 

The vodka loosened the stiffness and brought Kalmenka's focus back on Franz sharply. "Didn't know you knew Magyar."

Franz shrugged, taking another swallow. "Csak egy kicsit," he offered, although he knew his accent was terrible at the best of times and years unused. He grinned in a sharp flash of teeth. "Just enough to get in trouble with, mostly. Had a Cigány camp on the edge of town most of the time I was growing up."

Kalmenka's brows climbed upwards. "What?" he drawled harshly. "And your Mama just let you run off to play with the little Zigeuner kids?" The derogative was deliberate and sharp on his tongue but Franz just shrugged again. 

"'Course not," he replied. "'s why I did it. Not like she could stop me."

Kalmenka stared for a long moment, then laughed, the sound a quick, sharp bark. Encouraged, Franz continued lightly as the Reine took another long pull from the bottle. "Mostly I just remember how to swear, but 'sorry' - I learned that one fast enough, because if we weren't running from my parents then we were running from theirs." He took a thoughtful sip, watching the other man catch his breath. "Michal wasn't your fault."

Kalmenka eyed the diminished amount in the bottle with a hard look before resolutely pushing it to the side. "Tell me that _after_ I've written the Luck cursed letter to his family," he growled. 

Franz pushed the bottle back towards him, intercepting the other man's reach for his pen. "Drink it," he said firmly, holding it steady against Kalmenka's attempt to shove it away. "That's an order. Sir."

The Reine glared at him, but finally reached roughly for the bottle again, taking a swallow that left him coughing. "Hard one to argue with," he said harshly. 

"It won't get you drunk enough, but it's a start," Franz replied. And then, because it seemed to bear repeating, "It wasn't your fault. You said yourself - you couldn't do anything. A full hospital couldn't've. The luck rolled bad and there's not a fucking thing anyone could've done."

"Maybe," Kalmenka allowed softly, his eyes unfocused as he watched the play of sunlight on the glass of the bottle. He sounded far from believing it. "Maybe."

* * * * *

Toasts were drunk to the bottom of dry bottles, dutiful letters and reports were written, and on a cold but clear day the squad exchanged their duty grays and green Reine bands for formal dress blacks banded in white as Michal J. Kaminski, Obergefreiter of the 103rd Reine, was buried with honors. His locker and personal effects were collected, his bunk in the barracks stripped and empty, and in the week that followed they learned with variable success not to look for the lanky dark haired grocer's son with the ready lopsided smile or to listen for the lilt of his Polnisch accent. For a week their Reine tied the length of his hair back with white cords over white wraps, the color of mourning, but every dawn reveille still rang, they still rolled from their bunks and mustered out, and life went on.

A week and two days after the burial found them in the barracks as the afternoon dragged on, filled with the smell of tins of boot black and gun oil, rags and polishing cloth and the trails of cigarette smoke as they each sat, on bunk or floor, and prepped all of the bits and ends of their kits. "They can't keep us here forever," Jann growled, glaring down the spotless barrel of his P08. "Fuck, I'm sick of these Luck cursed walls."

"And _that_ lot," Franz seconded, jerking his thumb at the wall behind him and the sound of another squad out in the grounds on doubletime trot. "Wanted to listen to cadence all fucking day, I'd've volunteered for drill leader."

"Some of us _like_ sleeping in a bed," Randolf shot back dryly from where he was sitting on the floor with his back against his locker.

Jann made a sharp sound between his teeth. " _Some_ of us would have something better to do in a bed if they'd just give us fucking leave off base already."

"Don't you ever think of anything else?" Adolf asked, frowning reprovingly.

"Sure," Jann said brightly, grinning around the stub of his cigarette. "Sex, alcohol, and how to blow shit up. Just like they taught us in training, right?"

"You're impossible," Adolf scolded, brandishing his polishing brush like a schoolmaster's baton. "And you're not as dumb as you'd like us to think, Herr Scholtz. There's more things to do with a leave than... than..."

But he stumbled over saying it, the color rising high through his cheeks, and Jann and the others burst out laughing. "Na, come on Adolf, you can say it," Jann encouraged. "'Women'. 'Prostitutes'. _'Sex'_. Come on, just put your teeth together and - au!" The yelp was from Adolf's brush, which arced across the distance between their bunks with laudible testament to the other man's aim. "Au - 'ey! No hitting, Meyer, you bastard son of a..."

"I didn't lift a finger," Adolf replied primly. He managed to sound quite reasonable about it, though he was flushed from the crop of his dark hair all the way to his collar. "The brush slipped."

"Na," Kalmenka interjected from his own bunk, "more polishing, less squabbling, Kinder, before I have to put you all in seperate corners..." He broke off as an oily scrap of rag fell into the middle of his disassembled kit. Sighing, he blew the loose strands that always escaped his braid out of his eyes. "Scholtz, you are _asking_ for it..."

It was in the midst of the ensuing storm of rags and scraps and bits of airborn things flung at random that someone at the door to the barracks cleared their throat, and then did it again, loudly, until the squad turned as one to look. The boy in the doorway, in undecorated plain issue grays, shifted nervously. "I'm looking for the 103rd?"

Kalmenka flung another wadded bit of rag back at Franz and rolled off the edge of his bunk to his feet with a lazy stretch to step forward. "You're looking at it. Was ist, Junge?"

"Orders?" Jann inquired quickly, leaning to peer around Kalmenka's back.

But the boy had gone white as paper under his profusion of freckles, eyes wide at the sight of the Reine matrixes that wound up Kalmenka's bared arms from wrist to elbow. He snapped to attention with a sharp stamp of boot heel, hand out, spine ramrod straight. "Sir! Gefreiter Hans Mannheimer reporting as ordered, with orders, _SIR!"_

Franz rolled his eyes, falling back against the wall. "Just off the train," he muttered, but a look from Kalmenka silenced him. The Reine returned the boy's salute with a fluid flick of his fingers that ended in a languid wave.

"At ease, Gefreiter. Orders?"

The boy fumbled in his breast pocket, pulling out a folded sheaf of papers. His eyes, already huge, threatened to spill from his head as he looked at the hand - and the Reine tattooed arm above it - that Kalmenka held out for the papers; his own fingers fumbled the exchange and sent the packet tumbling to the ground. A choked burst of sound from Franz's direction was quickly stifled.

Kalmenka retreived the packet, waving away the boy's desperate stammered apologies. Unfolding the papers, he leafed through them, frowning as he skimmed what was written. "So..." he murmmured. "Should have guessed." He refolded the packet and tossed it across the barrack to Adolf. "He's ours," he announced, louder, and when he turned back to the boy his second salute was as crisply official as any officer could have wanted. "Oberleutnant Vász Kalmenka, commanding." Dropping the pose, he leaned back, jerking a thumb to the startled men behind him. "The skinny one's Randolf Stanislov and the misplaced schoolteacher's Adolf Meyer. The one behind him is Franz - also Stanislov, no relation, don't get 'em started - and the blonde ass is Jann Scholtz. Kerls," he dropped a hand to the boy's shoulder, making the younger man squeak in surprise, "this is Hans, and he's ours. And you can bet your last mark there's move out orders chasing his heels, so stop gawking and get those kits together, everything clean as a virgin's tits and twice as ready to go, hear me? Go on!"

His voice had risen to the sharp tone of a drill instructor and got automatic immediate results. Kalmenka nodded briskly and pressed the boy's shoulder for a moment, lowering his voice pleasantly. "Welcome to the 103rd." He nodded his head towards the one empty bunk in the back of the barracks. "You can put your stuff there. Don't suppose you heard when we're moving out?"

"N-n-no, sir, I'm sorry, sir," Hans stammered. Kalmenka followed the boy's wide eyed gaze to his arm and shook his head, giving the shoulder a shove towards the bunks before dropping his hand.

"Go get settled," he advised dryly. And when the boy had gathered up the bag he'd left on the steps and edged nervously past Kalmenka towards the bunks, he sighed and went back to drop down on his own bed, listening with half an ear to the voices of the others, now interspersed with Hans' awed, nervous tone. He didn't, Vász thought, sound a damned thing like Michal had, and maybe that was for the best. The tip of his braid wound easily around his wrist and the Reine stroked his thumb over the first set of knots in the cord wrap. Sighing, he let it go, tossing the heavy plait back over his shoulder, and scooped up the scattered pieces of his MP40 to reassemble it.


	2. Mud

The heavy, sticky promise of weeks of sweat and ash had finally born fruit, the low, gray wall of the sky opening up to pour warm sheets of rain onto the even hotter earth below, and the whole of their world became _mud_.

There was ash in the mud, soft gray ash from the billowing clouds that hissed in the rain, and dust and char, blood and the metallic tang of sulfur and gunpowder that got between a man's teeth up in the back of his throat. It rained for two days straight, as though the sky was determined to beat down every spark of explosion and whistling shell that dared to rise from the ground and challenge the air. The mud became home; they slipped and slid in it, pissed, crapped, ate and slept in it until there wasn't an inch of Jann that wasn't covered in it, wet and dripping from the clotted stringy itch of his hair all the way to the caked soles of his mud filled boots. Everywhere he turned there were eyes as red shot as his own felt, peering out of muddy masks.

On the third day, finally, it stopped.

The shells, the boom of which played counter rhythm in Jann's dreams during fitfully snatched stretches of sleep, had tapered away near noon and with it went the rain. From sheets to drizzles, it settled into trickling steady dampness that crept down the neck and dripped, in fat lazy drops, from helmet and nose and the edge of the trench alike. The silence, in the lack, rung as loudly to Jann's ears as a too close mortar strike.

They slumped where they were, string cut puppets squelching in the mud in a haze of smokey rain. Fishing through wet layers of cloth netted Jann the disintegrating remnants of a paper wrapped pack that crumbled between his fingertips. Sighing, he tossed it past the toes of his boots to where the sucking mud caught it. "Does _anyone_ have any smokes left?"

A muted chorus of negatives answered from the breathing bodies closest to him and he sighed, struggling up on one elbow amid the squelch and the slip. "Half a fag? I'll trade. Fuck, I'll take _ours_ if I have to."

Somone laughed, the sound like a bark. A hand - belonging to one of the grays from the artillery squads, though they were all gray in the mud - half lifted. "If you've got anything that doesn't taste like the pissing mud, I've got a smoke ."

"Praise the luck." He did; almost a full chocolate ration, wax paper wrapped, warm and half melted in a pocket against his ribs. He passed over half the block of thick sweet in exchange for a raggedly crumpled roll, the wrapping indistinguishably Byzantinisch brown in the fading afternoon haze. 

"Good luck finding a light in all this," his benefactor told him sourly. Jann laughed, rolling the taste of the dried leaf over his wet lips. 

"'ey." Stretching, he reached to tangle his fingers in the only hank of hair filthier than what his own felt like; the long wrapped tail, Kalmenka's pride and vanity, was a thick sodden rope of singed and matted mud. Jann caught the ragged end of it, tugging. "'ey. Sir. Light?"

The answer started in Kalmenka's eyes, too blue by half in the dirty mask of his face. Jann laid the cigarette against his tongue, leaned forward, and closed his own eyes. There was a muted wet snap, fingertip against fingertip - it was really only for show; the tiny flare of warmth told Jann when to inhale. He drew hard, lips pursed, and was rewarded with the first rush of sweet smoke as the ember caught fire.

When he opened his eyes the grays were all watching, mouthes dropped open like mud covered fish gaping in the rain. Jann let the laughter that had been coiled beneath his ribs bubble up, stealing another luxurious tobacco filled breath before passing the smoke to his Reine's eager fingers.


	3. Wish for Rain

Kalmenka half opened his eyes when someone kicked his ankle in passing, tipping his cap back to squint up at the offender. "Too fucking hot for pacing, Scholtz. Give us all a break and sit your ass down."

"All going to end up with sores on our asses from sitting," Jann growled, but he flung himself down into the shadowed corner of the dugout when Kalmenka obligingly pulled his legs out of the way. Puffs of dust, dislodged by the motion, spun lazily through the heat heavy air. Jann spat, lips pulled back over his teeth in disgust. "Fuck. Grit gets in everything. Wish it would fucking rain."

"Wasn't what you were saying a few months back when we were all up to our balls in mud," Kalmenka noted. He twisted into his corner of the small space, back arching, then curled up again, one foot shoved half between the other man and the dirt wall.

From the other side of their piled packs came the muted rumble of Franz's amusement. "If you were only up to your balls you were fucking holdin' out on us and standing on a cursed box," he accused. Kalmenka's answering bark of laughter was sharp and short.

"You let them talk to you like that?" The question came from the fourth body in the dugout, a square jawed man who had claimed the spot closest to the entrance. He had unbuttoned his gray uniform jacket, but the stars on his shoulders matched the ones on the jacket Kalmenka had wadded up to use as a pillow. They hadn't said much to each other beyond mumbled greetings, the space between the newcomer and the three of them measured in more than a few bare feet of dirt packed duckboard, but he kept his tone more curious than accusing and Kalmenka surreptitiously dug his boot into Jann's side when the other man rolled his eyes. 

"Na," he answered easily, and if it was a show to stretch a little more and reach tanned matrix covered arms above his head, well, it was a move that never seemed to fail to make the gray's eyes go a little wider. "Why not? They're my squad, aren't they?" He waved a lazy hand around the dugout. "Don't think we introduced. The big lump's Stanislov, skinny wreck what needs his ass nailed to the ground is Scholtz, Vász Kalmenka, and _you_..." he cocked a finger at the other officer "...are a new face who's still got city shine on his boots. So. Welcome to the most Luck cursed place on the damned planet, sorry you had to join us, and don't worry about it - give it a week, you'll realize nobody cares who's got what stripes unless it's der Alter."

Jann rapped his fist across Kalmenka's knee. " _Second_ worst. We voted, remember? That place down south, what was it-"

"Sopnik?" Franz supplied.

"Something like that," Jann agreed. " _That_ was worst. That had _fleas_. And those fucking little mites."

"And rats," Franz echoed. "Don't forget the rats."

Kalmenka held up his hands. "Ja, ja, alright... so, what? You're saying you'll take dust over fleas?"

"Fuck, yes," Jann growled. "Dust doesn't bite. Just gets in everything, and I'm fucking tired of eating it." He slapped his cap against his own knee, knocking free a cloud of dust, wiped a dirty hand across his brow and jammed it back on his head. "Still wish it would rain."

"Dust, mud, mess food," Kalmenka grumbled, "don't know how you can tell the difference." He tilted his head back to squint up at the lines of bright sun that seeped between the dugout's iron sheet roofing. "Rain's all done for the season. Puffy white little summer clouds ain't gonna give you much. Better get used to the dust."

"And it's always like this out here?" the other officer asked. He had scooted further up against the wall and was watching them more openly now.

"Pretty much," Kalmenka said, shrugging. 

"They always tell you it's not a vacation," the other man noted wryly, "just not by how much." He half shrugged, stretching his legs out. "I don't get why they keep _you_ out here, though. Reine units, I mean. Seems like there must be dozens of other things you could be doing."

Kalmenka spread his hands. "Not for us to question, just go where we're told."

"But it's not like you're heavy artillery," the other man pressed. "I mean, I understand the Reine units are deployed for combat, but I always thought it was more mobile strikes, not on the lines. Against a mortar gun..."

He had to break off there as the other three started grinning, Franz's laugh cutting him off. Kalmenka grinned, digging the toe of his boot back into Jann's side. "Oh, you'd be surprised. What's my count?"

"Nineteen artillery units," Jann replied promptly. "Next one will be the big twenty."

There was, Kalmenka had to admit, something gratifying in watching a gray's jaw drop. The other officer sputtered for a bit before finding his tongue. "And they've got you sitting in a _trench?_ " he demanded, sounding aggrieved.

"Na," Kalmenka drawled. "Think they _do_ think they're giving us a vacation."

Jann snorted. "Ja, 'cus I always wanted to see the Luck forsaken scenic Arad countryside from six fucking feet under," he growled, waving a hand up at the walls of the dugout.

"Better'n top-side," Franz countered.

"So what _can't_ you do?" the other officer asked, curious. 

Jann shoved an elbow into Kalmenka's knee before the other man could answer. "Make rain?" he suggested slyly. The Wehrmacht officer laughed.

Kalmenka tipped his head back again, eyeing the bright and dark banding of slats above them thoughtfully. He hummed against his teeth, fingers tapping a slow rhythm against his thigh. "Carbon dioxide," he offered at last. "Maybe. They've had some good reports in labs, and making it's easy enough, but deploying it's another matter."

The other three all blinked at him. "You're saying you could actually _make_ rain?" the other officer asked slowly. Kalmenka shrugged.

"Encourage it, maybe," he clarified. "'Cept not, because _that_ ," he jabbed a finger skyward, "is a little outside my range."

Jann squirmed around, leaning over Kalmenka's knees. "Main Harr," he said, suspiciously brightly, "did you maybe notice there's an awful lot of those really big guns outside? The ones with the really _long_ range? That nobody's using right now?"

Kalmenka frowned, then blinked, scratching at the rough stubble on his jaw as he thought. "Maybe," he allowed. "Not promising anything, but maybe."

Franz groaned, rolling up to his feet. "You two get your asses written up again and Adolf's gonna skin _both_ of you and leave you out for the birds," he said. He dusted himself off and made for the door, nudging the other officer's feet as he went. "Keep an eye on them, will you? I'm gonna go find a voice of reason and something for der Häptmann to do before he gets any _more_ bored." So saying, he ducked into the trench proper, his heavy steps echoing off the dusty boards.

"Franz is no fun," Jann complained, once he was sure the other man was out of earshot.

The Wehrmacht officer blinked. "...and it's always like this?" he asked again.

"Ja," Kalmenka agreed. "Most the time, pretty much. You get used to it."


	4. Don't Move!

Han's yelp was sharp, loud, and an undignified high pitch. "Fuck, mein Harr, don't move!"

He was the newest of them, still sporting the blank tags of a new recruit on his collar, so really, 'mein Harr' could have meant any of them. And they had all been through mine fields and enemy territory, so the ingrained reaction, whether they were safe in camp barracks or not, was an immediate full body freeze as everyone tried to figure out who had conceivably stepped on _what_ and how lethal it was. Han's eyes were comically wide as he groped for the boot he had just finished blacking, one hand frantically waving Kalmenka to stay still. "Hold on, mein Harr, I'll get it... just... _fuck_..."

"What?" Kalmenka, who had frozen in mid-step on his way back to his bunk, cast a quick look around him at the wood of the bunk post and the floor around him. Adrenaline from the first yell made his voice sharper than it would have been otherwise. "What is it, Gefreiter?"

"Don't move!" Hans was saying hastily, "don't move, you'll scare it, just let me..." He moved around to Kalmenka's side, out of where Kalmenka could easily turn to see without breaking position. 

" _Scare_ it?" Kalmenka snapped. "You're not reassuring me, here, Mannheimer. What the _fuck_...?"

With their Häptmann positively identified as the target the rest of them were freed to come gawk at the spectacle. Jann, who was closest, rolled upright on his bunk, twisting around to reverse direction and peer over the end of the bed. His impressed whistle also didn't do a thing towards soothing Kalmenka's nerves. "Fuck the luck, I think that's the _biggest_ one I've ever seen. Hey - hey Franz! Bring those goat stompers of your over here. The kid's feet ain't big enough."

Kalmenka swore. "Alright, look, Kerls, I am in my fucking _socks_. Is this thing going to sting or bite me?"

"No!" Hans yelped, backed up by Jann's more dubious "Don't _think_ so," neither of which was really reassuring. Kalmenka grit his teeth, feeling the skin on the back of his neck - and worse, around his ankles - start to crawl at the idea of a huge whatever-the-fuck-it-was crawling around loose somewhere at his heels. "Fine," he ground out, "just, _fine_ , then I'm going to move over here, nice and slow..."

"No, don't!" Hans cried and something shiny and black and almost as big as Kalmenka's _palm_ scuttled with nauseating prickles of touch across the top of Kalmenka's foot. He yelled and kicked and the thing went flying - and then went _flying_ , on an audible whirr of insect wings, bouncing off the edge of a bunk to careen drunkenly through the air. There was more yelling and ducking and more than one "Where the fuck did it go??" before the thing finally smacked against the wall with a dull thud, clinging against the law of gravity, antenna at least twice as long as its body twitching fitfully.

They all stared at it in a sort of disbelief before Franz got there, boot in hand, and there was a sickening crunch and squish. The body of the thing fell to the ground, leaving a broad red and brown smear across the wall. Kalmenka, who had rescued his sisters from more spiders, wasps, cockroaches and insects than he could count, rubbed the top of his foot compulsively against the back of his other ankle, as though it could erase the memory of the weight of the thing. "Tell me that was _not_ a cockroach," he said.

Adolf looked rather like he had taken a swallow of milk that had gone off. "It wasn't a cockroach," he echoed back. "Cockroaches don't _fly_."

Franz was examining the remains, both on his boot and on the floor. "Cousin of it, then. Sort of looks like it."

"I have _never_ ," Jann maintained, "seen a cockroach _that_ big. That was... " words failed him, though an expansive hand gesture seemed to suffice. 

"Disgusting," Randolf suggested. He had hastily pulled his feet up onto his bunk, boots and all, and Kalmenka couldn't really blame him. "How the fuck are you supposed to step on that?"

Hans was looking at the smear on the wall, versus the boot that was in his own hand, and had obviously come to the same conclusion Jann had, that his boot was simply not big enough to do the job. "Be like trying to step on a rat."

"Okay," Kalmenka said, "alright, _look_. Just... keep your socks on. And for fuck's sake, shake your boots out in the morning. I'll ask around, see if they bite or if they're just fucking monster big roaches." He couldn't quite suppress a shudder as he climbed up onto his own bunk, shaking his feet to be sure they were clean. 

"Has anyone taken a look around the mess kitchens?" Randolf asked. There was a telling silence from the rest of the squad - they had only arrived, gotten billet assignments and settled in the night before.

"I've still got some ration packs in my kit," Jann suggested after a bit. Adolf nodded enthusiastically and there were offers of similar contributions from the others.

Kalmenka sighed. Luck willing, they would only be there for five days or less, and Sasina Vaclav and their makeshift half-finished barracks, spotty running water and lack of insulation could _keep_ their monster roaches. He did, however, shake out his pillow and do a once over of his sheets before laying down.


	5. Proper Coffee

Randolf woke before dawn, habit rousing him before the change in light could, and inhaled... then inhaled again, holding the breath in his lungs until it burned. 

"'m delusional," he announced, kicking free of his blankets. "I smell coffee."

Someone - Franz, by the width of the hand - thrust a battered tin cup towards him. "You're not delusional," the other man rumbled, amused. 

Randolf scowled, although he accepted the cup by reflex, curling his fingers around the meager warmth. "No," he clarified. " _Proper_ coffee, not that ersatz shit..." he broke off, cautiously raising the cup, and inhaled again from the thin steam rising over the mug rim. His eyes slitted closed, a low moan working free from his throat. "Oh sweet _mercy_ , it's _real_."

"Real enough," Franz replied, chuckling. "Need a moment alone, there?"

"Shut up," Randolf muttered, but it carried barely a fraction of his normal acerbity. He took a hesitant sip, pausing with his lips resting against the rim of the cup, and the second moan, hummed through flared nostrils, was almost obscene. "Fuck me," he breathed, swallowing. "Sweet bleeding Luck, where did you _find_ it?"

"All Hans' doing," Franz answered. He was crouched down, a dark hulk of a shape to Randolf's eyes in the dim pre-dawn light, pouring water into another cup that was balanced over an empty can that had been conscripted for use as a stove. "Had visitors last night on his watch."

Randolf stiffened, clutching tighter at the cup. "What?" he hissed, but the other man was already waving, big hand lazily signaling a stand down. 

"Just a couple of local kids," Franz told him. "Making tracks east like scared rabbits. Hans traded 'em a couple of chocolate bars for six ounces of coffee grounds, and I'm gonna brew the fuckers until they dissolve."

Randolf winced. "This is one of those instances where I need to just shut up, close my eyes, and drink my damned coffee, isn't it?"

Franz huffed a quiet laugh. "Gefreiter," he rumbled, "shut up and drink your damned coffee."

"Jawohl, mein Herr," Randolf answered automatically, and buried his face back in the cup to breathe the precious scent deeper.


	6. Remembering Things

It was Randolf who noticed first, somewhere inbetween the table heaped with blessedly clean and new shirts in every non-regulation color imaginable and the barefoot boy who was tugging at his coat tail with, oh, bless the Luck, a handful of  _fresh smokes_. Inbetween the two he managed to look up long enough to realize that somewhere along they way they'd  _lost_  der Häptmann.   
  
He grabbed Franz, who grabbed Jann and Adolf, and between the four of them they pulled the kid out of where he was wallowing ("Hey!" Hans protested, "hey, come on, I'm trying to bargain here!") in another table of - oh Luck, was that soap? Randolf resolutely made himself turn away and then they backtracked, en masse, through the milling crowd of hawkers and sellers and buyers and women with baskets and men with goats until Franz, who towered a head over everyone else in the crowd, pointed out the one still point of shabby grey in the mix.  
  
Kalmenka was standing stock still in the middle of the market, eyes closed, face screwed up as though he'd bitten through a lemon. They all shared a look, but it was Jann's turn so their second sighed and stepped in to snap his fingers against their Häptmann's ear, trying to get his attention. "Main Harr? What'd you forget?"  
  
It took a few repetitions but finally Kalmenka's face relaxed a little, his eyes opening, and Randolf breathed a sigh of relief because he was actually focusing on the men around him, which was a good sign.   
  
Better - and stranger - still was that the response wasn't the usual string of equations, whichever part of it that Kalmenka was trying to recall. Instead, the man looked Jann right in the face, clear eyed, and said "Cardamon."  
  
Jann blinked. "What?"  
  
"Cardamon," Kalmenka repeated. "Cardamon and those pod seed things, um..." he tipped his head back, face scrunched up into 'thinking' again, then snapped his fingers. "Anise. And ribbons, red, two fingers wide, five lengths long, and..."  
  
Randolf supposed spices could be used as chemical components of something but he was still trying to figure out what the ribbons were for when Franz just cut to the chase. "What's that for?"  
  
Kalmenka gave him a look as though the bigger man had possibly sprouted a second head and had only half a brain between the two of them. "Sophie," he answered. "Sophie wants the spices, cardamon, anise, and fuck, there's that coarse ground sharp smelling crap, what ever it is..."  
  
"Zatar, I think," Adolf supplied.  
  
"Yeah, that," Kalmenka agreed, relieved. "And Rozá wants the ribbons, and Margit wanted..." More scrunched up thinking face, but the rest of the squad was with the plan of attack now.   
  
"Solstice," Jann groaned. He looked around at the market, narrowing his eyes at the profusion of colors and scents and shapes that were harder to come by on the other side of the front line. "Didn't Margit want thread? That gold stuff out of Byzantine..."  
  
"Ivett," Randolf found himself offering, "said something about one of those bottles of perfume..."  
  
In the end, if they each took one sister, they could spread it out enough to make it reasonable. It was fair enough - Kalmenka's sister's were more than half family, and Hans liked bargaining.


	7. Helping Hand

"Hey," Franz said quietly, pushing the door shut with a click behind him.

_"What?"_ Randolf snarled, slamming a box back onto one of the steel shelves. "Come to add your marks in too? 'Cus I'm fucking tired of listening to line and paragraph..."

"Hey," Franz repeated, placating. "Not here for that." He unbuttoned part of his shirt and slipped a hand inside, pulling out a slim metal flask that sloshed heavily.

All of the bristling tension slid out of Randolf in a rush, leaving his hand gripping white knuckled at the edge of the shelf. "Fuck, Franz," he breathed heavily. He uncurled his fingers, reaching eagerly for the flask. "Luck bless..."

Franz caught his hand before he could uncap it, the other man's larger fingers fitting easily over Randolf's. "Not now," Franz suggested. "Herr Major's pissed enough as it is, he smells it on you while you're on duty and he'll have your balls for breakfast. Save it for lights out."

Randolf stiffened, but after a moment he nodded and Franz released the flask. Randolf eyed it longingly for a moment, then slipped it into his pocket. "Danke," he said shortly, turning away. "'Least I can get some sleep before that bastard starts in on us again..."

"We could all use some sleep and a week's pass, but it aint' gonna be for awhile," Franz agreed. His hand came to rest on the other man's shoulder, fingers pressing into a muscle that made Randolf hiss and twitch away. "Fuck, Randolf. You need to relax."

"Relax," Randolf echoed, disbelieving. "Oh, of course, I need to fucking _relax_ , like Herr Hauptmann needs to relax, and Meyer needs to stop chewing his nails to the bloody quick and Mannheimer needs to stop fucking twitching like he's got palsy!" His voice, starting low, was building, the words tumbling out one over the other between his clenched teeth. "Is that an order, Herr Obergefreiter, or can I just get back to doing the luck cursed inventory?"

"Psss," Franz hushed, his own voice a low bass rumble. "Shut it, Randolf, or it's going to be like when the kid started yelling all over again."

Randolf snapped his mouth shut, taking a deep breath through flared nostrils before he spoke, his voice kept rigidly quieter. "You broke one of his ribs."

"I said I was sorry," Franz replied, "and somebody had to sit on him." His hand came up again to cup, large and warm, across the back of the other man's neck as he gave Randolf a small shake. "Keep this up, you'll hurt yourself."

_Or one of us_ , was the unspoken part, and Randolf's lips thinned into a tight, bitter line as he nodded. His hand rose, fingers tangling in Franz' sleeve. "I'm alright," he said duly. "I'm fine."

"You're fucked," Franz countered, his tone making no more of it than he would have remarked on the weather. "We all are, but you've got that baby girl back home and all the shit out here's driving you screw loose." He gave the other man another little shake. "Relax, little brother. We bring our men home. 's what the 103 _does_."

"Don't," Randolf said, protest against the play on their shared last name reflexive, but his heart wasn't in it and he wouldn't meet Franz's eyes. "...We didn't bring Michal home." 

Franz let out a slow breath, nodding once. "We were young and stupid. And we don't make the same mistakes twice. It'll be alright."

"Maybe," Randolf allowed, the word barely breathed. "Maybe this year. Maybe next year. How long do you think our luck is going to hold, huh? How long until we've all got the shakes? How long until they're dragging our sorry asses home in bags?" He shook his head, his voice cracking. "I can't keep doing this, Franz, I can't... When this term is up..."

"Stop it," Franz said sharply. His other hand rose, catching the shorter man's head between his grasp, one palm covering Randolf's mouth to still his words. Randolf jerked, eyes wide and fingers scrambling at the other man's arms, but Franz gave him another sharp shake, rougher. "Don't you say it," he warned, low and tight. "When term's up you can say it then, but don't you fucking breathe a word right now. Don't even _think_ it. Short termer thinking, looking ahead instead of at what's in front of you right now - that gets guys _dead_ faster than anything and I will _not_ be scooping your scrawny ass up out of your own guts. Hear me? Don't you fucking say it, not a word, not a mother loving sound, got it?"

Randolf was nodding, or trying to, and after a moment Franz let him go, his hands dropping to cup the other man's face as Randolf drew in a shaking breath. "Don't be dumb," Franz said, softer. "You had a scare, you fumbled a shot, but nobody's dead so stop fucking looking back and keep your eyes on the road in front of you."

"Ja," Randolf breathed. His hands, looped around Franz's wrists, held tight. "Ja, I know. I _know_." He didn't say anything else and they stood for a minute, until his breath was coming quiet in the small supply room. 

"You," Franz said finally, firmly, "need to fucking _relax_." 

"I..." Randolf started, but Franz moved, cutting him off, and the rest of it came out in a near yelp. "Franz!"

"Psss," Franz rumbled, amused. "Shut it, little brother. I'm not after your ass." 

"What the _fuck_ do you think you're doing?" Randolf hissed angrily, shoving the other man's hand away from his trouser buttons. "Stop it! I'm not... I don't..."

"Ja, I know," Franz said, entirely matter of fact as he caught one of Randolf's wrists in a firm grip, his other hand dropping back down and dragging a strangled gasp from the other man's throat. "You've got that pretty little wife and baby at home. So let me tell you what you already know - we don't have so much as a hint of leave for another three weeks, and short of Luck loving you like no one else it's not going to be long enough for you to nip home and see her. You're strung so damned tense I could bounce pfennige off your shoulders, wound tighter than a trip wire and just as likely to go off. I know two good ways to fix that - three, counting a good line of bottles - but right this minute there's nobody for you to take aim at." As he talked his hand continued where it had left off, fingers slipping buttons free despite Randolf's white knuckled grasp on his wrist and the other man's half hissed demands to stop.

"Now," Franz finished, calmly, "Karina struck me as a sensible one. Maybe more'n you. You think she'd rather you up on charges for taking a shot at a Major? Or sticking it to some other woman you probably paid for the privilege? _Or_ ," his hand slid between Randolf's thighs, cupping through the fabric of trousers and briefs, as Randolf's short nails dug into his wrist, "you think she'd rather one of us gives you a quick hand, you get some sleep tonight, and wake up tomorrow not looking like you're six fags short of a pack? Hmm?"

Randolf was breathing shortly, his eyes showing white beneath the harsh overhead light, and he had to swallow hard to find his voice. "I don't... Franz... This isn't.. I..."

"Not asking you to bend over," Franz said quietly, his gaze steady. "And you can close your eyes and think of whatever the fuck you want. Just offering a hand."

Randolf was shaking his head, strands of his dark hair falling erratically across his forehead. "Nain, don't... I can't..."

"Liar," Franz said mildly. His hand slid up, stroking over fabric, and then slipped back down beneath the fabric to skin. Randolf gasped, the sound harsh in his throat, his free hand scrambling for purchase on Franz's sleeve as his head dropped back against the edge of the shelf with a hard thunk. 

" _Fuck_ ," he breathed, the word strangled, "oh fuck, _fuck_..."

Franz shushed him again, one eyebrow, the one with the scar curving through it, sliding upwards as he leaned in, pushing Randolf back against the shelves. "Tight as a tripwire," he repeated quietly. "Give it up, Junge. I've got you."

Randolf squeezed his eyes shut as the other man palmed him. He caught his lower lip between his teeth to shut out any more words, but his breath hissed loud and harsh through his nostrils and sharp little sounds, half swallowed in his throat, were loud in the small room. Franz pressed him back hard against the shelves, steadying him with a hand against his hip, and Randolf's hands both came up to fist in the other man's shirt as Franz stroked him, hard and tight.

It was as quick as he had promised, panted breaths giving way to a stifled whimper as Randolf's thin hips jerked up into Franz's grasp, his rhythm scattered and broken with tension and pure need. Franz caught him around the waist, holding the other man pinned between his own chest and the shelves, and kept his gaze on his friend's face as Randolf swallowed a moan, eyes shut tight and pale cheeks flushed. A handful more strokes and he was done, mouth open on a near silent groan as he came, the shudders working through him in ragged bursts.

Franz fished a handkerchief from his pocket to clean them both with and had Randolf's buttons refastened by the time the other man could draw a steady breath. Randolf was holding onto the shelves, his eyes flickering quickly to the floor, the wall, anywhere but at the other man. Franz tugged Randolf's uniform into line, straightened his collar and brushed him down, and then stepped back as far as the narrow aisle between the shelves would allow. "Achtung!"

The sharp bark had the effect he wanted; Randolf straightened, snapping to attention automatically, shoulders back and chin up as though he had been jerked upright on strings. "Gefreiter Stanislov," Franz snapped, his deep voice falling easily into the clipped cadence of the review line, "you are to report to the doctors immediately. You will tell them that, due to fever, your Obergefreiter is enacting quarantine - three days of isolation, minimum, and I want you fucking in that bed and _resting_ , do you understand me?"

Randolf's jaw dropped, leaving him wide eyed and gaping. "Wha-? But... I... _What?_ "

Reaching out, Franz took his shoulders and firmly turned the other man towards the door. "Medics. Three days bed rest. _Now._ I'll finish up here."

Randolf squirmed out of his grasp, still gaping. "But...! I'm not... have you lost your mind? I'm not feverish!"

Half smiling, Franz tapped one finger against the other man's flushed cheek. "Could've fooled me," he noted, which only made the flush intensify as Randolf caught his meaning. "I'm no medic and they know it, but fuck if I'm going to take chances with some fever laying us all on our asses. Off you go." And, when Randolf didn't move, "That's an _order_!"

That did the trick, putting Randolf reflexively into motion. He paused at the door, though, half turning to look back. "...Danke," he said at last, softly.

Franz waved a hand. "Bitte sehr. You'd do the same if you could pull rank on me. Now go on! Three days, damn your stubborn ass, and if you can fake a convincing cough they'll probably give you some of the good shit. Go!"

Randolf laughed, the sound rusty and broken but real. "Jawohl," he answered, flicking a hand in a poor imitation of a salute, and Franz waited until the door had clicked shut behind the other man before he picked up the clipboard Randolf had abandoned and turned to the inventory.


	8. Caught in Amber

It had been awhile and he always forgot, between sessions, just how sharp the smell of the chemicals were. The first breath, in the dark, always seemed to burn through his sinuses and sting his eyes, acrid and awful and familiar all at once in the mix of bromide, ether and cyanide. After that first breath the sessions blurred, riding on the sense memory of smell and touch, until they all seemed the same, a sequence of motions - lighting the stub of a candle behind the red glass of the lantern, mixing the developers and baths, each and every thing in its precise place from the timer to the film rolls to the pinned back cuffs of his shirt. 

A lifetime hobby had turned the motions into something he could do in his sleep, or in pitch blackness, just as easily as he could clear and reload a pistol. Randolf sometimes thought that was why he kept doing them both; the similarity, like and utterly unlike, of two sets of trained motions that he could do while his mind did anything or nothing else, a soothing repetitive rhythm of sequences that were done, over and over, as much for their own sake as for the final product.

But much like the care and cleaning of his guns, developing and printing the rolls of photographs carefully stored in the case of his camera was something that had to be done when the time was available. It was always something of a random tumble with fortune; more than once he'd found sections or whole rolls stained nothing but black, accidentally exposed to light sometime before he could process them, or hastily developed negatives that had been melted, burnt or damaged from weeks of being carried around in their cases before he could run prints. He'd found, often enough, whole rolls of images that he barely remembered taking, scattered memories staring back at him from the final stop bath in black and gray and sepia tones.

It was just as well that he could do the sequence of chemical baths in his sleep because he was, nearly, the sting in his eyes encouraging a half squint that turned too easily into half-masted and barely awake in the dim light. It had been a long month - months - and he might, he thought, be better off using his spare moments for some much needed sleep, but the prints wouldn't develop themselves and it was a shame, not to mention a frightful waste, to take the risk of leaving them laying about when the opportunity presented itself.

He could count off the time almost as accurately as the little silver timer, his hands automatically lifting each print from one bath to the next in an orderly sequence and lifting the first of the prints from the final tray to sluice the chemicals from it and affix it with a clip to the drying string. It was, he realized with a start as he squinted at it in the flickering red light, a snapshot of two women, beribboned and wreath decked in their festival best, and he couldn't for the life of him think of any reason he might have taken their picture; or when, or who they were, for that matter. 

But a second look told him he did know, even if he couldn't remember their names and that was assuming he'd ever known them. The taller woman was dark haired with a broad smile, necklaces jingling at her throats; she wasn't Cigany but she had caught his eye and he'd begged for a photograph with all the charm the squad had once sworn he didn't have. If he squinted just right in the dim light she almost looked like the captain's eldest sister. 

And it had been festival, and he'd been drunk, or getting to it, he thought sourly. It was a waste of film, for all that it was a decent photograph. 'Artistic', he supposed and he wished, just a little, that the glass plates required for capturing color weren't so wretchedly difficult and delicate to carry; the festival ribbons would have made a splendid splash of hues. All the same, it wasn't a picture he particularly cared one way or the other about in the sober light of months later. 

Still, it placed the time and location of the roll of film for his memory; harvest festival, before the turn of the new year, and he'd been lucky enough to run into...

Oh. _Oh._

The timer clicked off again and it was there, in the next print, caught and preserved in chemicals burned into thick paper, shimmering beneath the fluid of the final bath. Randolf lifted it carefully, hands automatically sluicing the droplets from the surface, and raising it to the next clip on the drying line. 

Harvest festival, when he had been on business in Lucenec only to find all business hung for the duration of festival and the nearby Vaclav Lager battalion given twenty-four hours of freedom to mingle with the town for riotous amounts of beer and food and dancing. Vaclav Lager, one of the Reine camps, good old Vaclav where they'd all spent months slogging through mud and shit and hell, and in a place so familiar he hadn't thought twice about it when he had spotted a familiar pair of broad shoulders across the square.

He lifted the third photograph by sheer habit, motions ingrained into his hands, and clipped it to the line with trembling fingers. Wet and shining in the dim light, Franz's sharp grin looked back at him from the paper, caught with bottle in hand at a table and the familiar shape of Lucenec's town square sketched dimly behind him. 

Franz had been surprised to see him; had ditched the 89R he was serving with, their Reine a pale, sharp face cut all from angles that couldn't have looked less like _their_ captain if he had tried, and Randolf and he had spent twenty-four hours getting progressively drunker over shared memories of the 103R. He had spent a roll of film on the festival, snapping photographs while Franz laughed, shots of the stalls and the dancers and the lights and scattered inbetween them as Randolf methodically processed the prints were a double handful of his once squad-mate; drinking, gesturing as he talked, lit cigarette trailing from lips and fingertips and he was caught, full on, profile, or half glimpsed as he leaned into or out of a shot by accident.

He hung the last one numbly, every motion setting the whole line, square after square of wet print, to rustling. The last photograph of Franz was fourth before the end, blurred, light colors ghosting in splotches, but the other man's face could just be made out in profile, lips curved in a smile. He had turned, Randolf remembered dimly, just after the camera had clicked, the smile broadening into Franz' rough, toothy grin as the other man caught him in the act of taking the picture.

There was another roll waiting to be printed, some other canister from some other time, photos taken while traveling to bring back to his wife and daughter. Randolf carefully emptied the trays, washed hands and surfaces, and blew out the small lantern candle, the scent of the smoke mingling almost sweet over the smell of the chemicals. The other roll could wait. 

He knew, within an inch, where every item in the little darkroom was and could move through it without mishap. In the darkness, velvety black and thick with the smells, he reached up and brushed his fingers over the row of hanging prints, feeling them rustle like leaves at his touch. 

He could count each photograph, the image of each burned fresh into his memory. Eleven clear prints in all, a handful more counting the blurred and accidental shots. Randolf closed his eyes, black against black. He would make copies of the prints. He would have to. He didn't know if he had current postmarks for all of them but Adolf... he could find Adolf. Adolf would know. He would have to make copies of the prints.

Months old film, hastily developed in a field box, the negatives rolled and stored until he could fish them out, later, after winter fest, after the turn of the new year, after Lucenec and Weimar and a criss-crossing net of rail trips and business meetings. Months after, when he had finally returned home to find the first telegram, penned from Adolf, already waiting for him, and the letter with the official clipping sent by mail a week later, and he had returned to find them both old news, gathering dust in the stack of correspondences while he was away. 

The 89R had been lost in Skopje two weeks after the new year, the entire squad buried with honors for their part in breaking a front line entrenchment. The official clipping had been brief, listing nothing but name and rank and current posting. Obergefreiter Franz Stanislov of the 89R... there had been no mention of years spent with the 103R. The 103R didn't exist. Not anymore.

Randolf took a deep breath, harsh and dizzy with chemicals. It was late; their daughter would be in bed. His bags were still in the hall, unpacked, unless Karina had taken them in hand. The telegram had been the first thing she put in his hand after he had kissed her hello, and it was there, still, folded and tucked into his vest pocket against his ribs. He had picked up his camera bag and retreated to the dim, close confines of the darkroom because there were two things he could do awake or asleep, in the dark, two repetitive soothing motions ingrained into his hands by long habit, and he had promised, he had _promised_ that he wouldn't clean and polish guns in the house with their daughter. 

There was a telegram in his pocket and eleven clear photographs of Franz's face, alive, laughing, hung to dry across the rope line. Randolf closed his eyes tighter, until the darkness was streaked in dull red, took another deep breath, and told himself that any redness in his eyes could always be blamed on the chemicals. Karina was a sweet woman who took better care of her husband than Randolf sometimes thought he deserved; she would even pretend to believe him.


End file.
